This Newfound Alien Planet Has 3 Suns

[Judi Lynn]

By Meghan Bartels 4 hours ago



An artist's depiction of the view from a moon's surface of a gas giant and three suns.(Image: © NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Astronomers think they've spotted an alien planet with three suns on its horizon — but that still isn't the most interesting thing about the strange new world's sky.

Scientists found the world, which they've dubbed LTT 1445Ab, in data gathered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). LTT 1445Ab orbits just one of the three stars, all of which are red dwarfs in the latter half of their lives, and the system is about 22.5 light-years away from Earth.

"If you're standing on the surface of that planet, there are three suns in the sky, but two of them are pretty far away and small-looking," co-author Jennifer Winters, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told New Scientist. "They're like two red, ominous eyes in the sky."

From the TESS data, the scientists believe the planet is rocky, about a third larger than Earth and is at most about 8 times as massive as our home. It's awfully toasty on the surface — 320 degrees Fahrenheit (160 degrees Celsius) — and the planet circles one star of the triplet every 5 days.

More:
https://www.space.com/exoplanet-has-three-red-dwarf-suns.html

[Wednesdays]

1. Three?